In recent years, wireless data communication in domestic and enterprise environments have become increasingly commonplace and an increasing number of wireless communication systems have been designed and deployed. In particular, the use of wireless networking has become prevalent and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) standards have been developed.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) have formed a committee for standardizing WLANs such as e.g. the popular IEEE 802.11 standard series. The IEEE 802.11 series comprises a number of standards for different WLANs, including the IEEE 801.11a™ and IEEE 801.11g™ standards which have become commonplace. Furthermore, the IEEE has continued to further develop and standardize different WLAN systems including a high-speed WLAN standard known as IEEE 802.11n. IEEE 802.11n™ systems are expected to operate in the 5 GHz frequency spectrum and promises data rates of around 100 Mbps and above. 802.11n™ will use many techniques which are similar to the earlier developed IEEE 801.11a™ and IEEE 801.11g™ standards and is to a large extent compatible with many of the characteristics of the earlier standards thereby allowing reuse of techniques and circuitry developed for these. For example, as in the previous standards IEEE 801.11a™ and IEEE 801.11g™, 802.11n™ will use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) modulation for transmission over the air interface. Furthermore, IEEE has begun the initial work on the standardization of a further enhancement known as IEEE 802.11VHT™ (for Very High Throughput).
It is thus a continued desire that further WLAN techniques and standards are developed which may provide improved performance and which in particular may provide improved throughout, increased flexibility, and/or improved air interface resource management and allocation.